Top Customer Data Platform Benefits Your Company Needs

In a recent Gartner survey of 402 business leaders responsible for customer data, 82% said they are striving to achieve a 360° view of customers. Interestingly, they also cite customer data platforms (CDPs) as the technology most frequently used to achieve this goal. Achieving a holistic view of customers through profile unification is only one of the many benefits customer data platforms can offer businesses today. Let’s take a closer look at some of the different advantages brands can realize from using a CDP for data initiatives. 

Customer Data Platform Benefits

CDPs provide businesses with unique proficiencies that exceed the offerings of similar tools like customer relationship management platforms (CRMs) or data management platforms (DMPs). Customer data platforms empower brands to get to know who their customers are and follow their journeys. They make personalized views accessible by unifying profiles from first-, second-, and third-party data. 

In contrast to CDPs, CRMs handle mostly first-party data and offline information. To improve ad targeting, DMPs deal with second- and third-party data. Neither tool, however, offers the unabridged customer view essential for deriving actionable insights. Let’s examine the top customer data platform benefits and explore how they help drive conversion and growth.

Unified Customer Profiles

Customer profile unification is one of the most valuable benefits of using a customer data platform. It allows marketing, sales, and support teams to track customers’ individual journeys in greater depth and detail. Profile unification enables marketing and sales teams to craft personalized experiences for individual customers, which CDPs then multiply to the scale of hundreds and thousands of journeys. 

A CDP unifies profiles by attributing data points (such as name, device ID, email, etc.) from multiple sources to a single customer and then assigning a permanent ID. Profile unification would be a Herculean task for any human undertaking as it requires evaluating thousands of data points, but CDPs leverage AI and machine learning to stitch various data into permanent customer identities.

CDPs typically resolve identities using two kinds of matching procedures: 

Deterministic matching method – The CDP searches for identifying information (username, email, etc.) to make a direct match with a customer. 

Probabilistic matching method – The CDP uses AI to make a match by estimating the statistical likelihood that identifying information matches a customer. Supplemental information such as device type or IP address can be used to enrich limited first-party data. 

With unified customer profiles, brands can improve targeting and marketing budget allocation. Increased precision in targeting also means brands can build relationships more effectively with customers through relevant messaging. 

Deeper Understanding of Customers 

Brands can also enjoy a near-intuitive understanding of their audiences’ needs and expectations as another customer data platform benefit. As a CDP creates a single source of truth for marketing, sales, and support teams, brands get a detailed, comprehensive picture of how customers move from one touchpoint to another. In other words, a CDP is able to tell the whole story of a customer’s journey and illuminate salient factors that impact experience and influence decisions. 

Different industries leverage a deeper understanding of their customers due to unified profiles in various ways:

Automotive: CDPs create a unified view of individual car buyers so brands can predict who is ready to buy and who needs more nurturing. 

CPG: CDPs provide customer insights to help CPG players respond quickly to shifting consumer demands. 

Retail: Customer analytics provided by a CDP help predict shopper preferences and anticipate consumer needs.  

Financial Services: CDPs derive insights to maintain financial customers’ loyalty in the midst of disruptive innovations and trends. 

Entertainment and Media: A CDP uses unified profiles to tailor experiences across platforms, devices, and entertainment/media apps. 

Life Sciences: CDPs improve engagement with relevant educational and marketing content on customers’ preferred channels.

Actionable Insights

These benefits build upon one another to provide CDP users with unparalleled advantages. As a CDP continuously unifies and updates customer profiles, brands can understand their audiences more deeply. In turn, a robust foundation of customer data paves the way for AI and machine learning to extract actionable insights. CDPs analyze millions of data points to reveal hidden trends and patterns in customer behavior. 

Brands can use actionable insights to:

• Predict consumer response to marketing actions, campaigns, or offers
• Assess customer acceptance of new products or services
• Perceive customer needs, wants, and expectations
• Determine pain points to improve the customer journey
• Increase engagement and drive conversion 

Actionable insights rooted in a CDP’s unified profiles offer brands the best chance of success to reach, engage, and guide customers toward conversion. 

In summary, CDPs offer brands several unique benefits, including profile unification, a deeper understanding of customers, and actionable insights. Brands can use these customer data platform benefits to increase engagement, improve customer journeys, and drive growth through conversion. 

Enjoy Top CDP Benefits With Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud

Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud, an integrated suite of cloud-based customer data platform solutions, helps companies improve campaign performance, achieve operational efficiency, and create connected customer experiences. See what you can do with Treasure Data: 

• Collect all types of data from multiple/omnichannel sources
• Unify customer profiles for a 360° view
• Centralize customer data storage for marketing, sales, and support teams
• Protect customer data privacy with enterprise-grade security
• Activate audiences and data-driven campaigns with a click
• Personalize journeys to increase engagement and conversion
• And more

Join global names like LG, AB InBev, Subaru, Shiseido, among others to see what Treasure Data can do for you. 

To learn more about customer data platform benefits for your business, consult an expert today. Want to learn more? Request a demo, call 1.866.899.5386, or contact us for more information.